Mike Zielinski, also known as Zeke, offers his entertaining and insightful take on politics, sports and topical events. Zeke has been a prolific and creative sports columnist, news columnist, blogger and wordsmith with a lifelong love affair with prose.

When he left the White House, the populace — even many Republicans — was shaking its collective head in derision.

Bush was viewed as one of the worst presidents in history, down there with fellow bottom feeders Filmore, Pierce, Buchanan and Harding.

Well, history apparently doesn’t last forever and things change. Next we’ll find out that Washington lied his butt off, Lincoln was secretly rooting for the South, Grant was a sober genius, the buck didn’t stop with Truman, Eisenhower wasn’t bald, Kennedy was up to his wavy locks in fidelity and Nixon never was tricky.

Now comes the incredible speculation that George W.’s reputation is ready for a rebound.

It’s a catastrophe terrible enough to make the mothers of oilmen and environmentalists cry.
Brothers and sisters, that’s indeed Terrible with a capital T.
The Obama administration now is pulling out all the sponges and mops it can muster to help minimize the enormous environmental consequences of having that monumental oil spill wash ashore in the Mississippi Delta Friday.
And the feds are going to bill BP, the operator of the sunken rig that caused the leak, for the astronomical cleanup costs.
Then again, the federal government is not a last resort in an event of such magnitude. God’s infinite mercy is a last resort. Even fish in the Gulf of Mexico reportedly were seen clutching rosary beads today.
Of course, the administration rejected suggestions the federal government was guilty of a One-Mississippi, Two-Mississippi, Three-Mississippi delay before dealing with the spill.
Rather, the feds expressed frustration with BP’s inability to seal the ruptured wellhead, which is spewing a whopping 5,000 barrels of oil a day into the water. Such a waste of oil when the Indy 500 folks are just revving up their engines.
Apparently the spill could have been prevented by a simple remote “off” switch, which the rig lacked. Hence, BP is under heavy fire from environmentalists, the media and the government.
Still, character assassination seldom draws blood.

Life everywhere, which includes Berks County, means different strokes for different folks.
Tuesday night in Berks graphically demonstrated the disparity.
You found dimpled grins here. Fixed scowls there. The dramatic difference was strung so tight you could hang wash on it.
The promise of a wondrous life bloomed abundantly here. Two dead bodies lay growing cold there … the life in them snuffed out for eternity … whatever hopes they once had for life growing cold with them.
At FirstEnergy Stadium, Stephen Strasburg was riding his rocket of a right arm once again to future stratospheric glory in the major leagues. The Harrisburg Senators’ fabulous phenom pitched five hitless innings and knocked in the only run to beat our Reading Phillies.
Life’s possibilities seem enormous for Strasburg. He obviously can’t wait for the Earth to turn again and see what tomorrow brings.
Meanwhile, two women were found slain in the office of the Hillside Motel along Route 422 in Amity Township.
The DA last night would not divulge anything about them except to say were two deceased females. Whoever they were … whatever they did in life … however they died and why they died … all would have to wait for another day. Of course, for them, another spin of Earth’s axis is a moot point. They’re now part of a different plane somewhere.
I guess this merely points out that life is what we make it — with a heavy dependence on benevolent genetics, choices and circumstances.
I don’t know if it really was a better world when everybody smoked cigarettes and emptied distilleries. Perhaps it just seemed so.
Not to be a pop philosopher, but I imagine that when it comes to life we only get a single roll of the dice. Just like when trying to defuse a nuclear missile.

I know democracy still is relatively new to Eastern Europe, which had been under the thumb of the Soviet Union for decades.

The growing pains were quite evident when the Ukraine parliament somewhat thumbed its nose at political protocol today.
In a scene straight out of the Marx (Groucho, not Karl) Brothers, opposition lawmakers hurled eggs and smoke bombs inside parliament as the chamber approved a 25-year extension to the Russian Black Sea fleet’s base in Crimea.
Many Ukrainians loathe the Russians, apparently fearful they could still beat them like egg yolks someday.
Eventually democracy there should evolve into the majestically mature model we have in the States, where lawmakers are merely content to verbally assault each other — sans the foreign objects.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has signed Senate Bill 1070 into law, morphing Arizona into the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany with the stroke of a pen.
God, that old cliché about the pen being mightier than the sword stills holds true in the digital age. Who would have thunk it?
Well, Arizonians should be radish red with embarrassment over this fascist, draconian and likely unconstitutional anti-immigration law.
Granted, illegal immigration is a terrible problem, especially in Arizona. There are an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in this country, nearly half a million of whom are in Arizona. Obviously California and Texas have a bunch of them and Reading certainly has its fair share.
But unlike Arizona, you can’t fight the dragon any way you can.
Its new immigration law is darker than Johnny Cash’s closet was.
The Arizona law empowers the police to stop a person if there is a “reasonable suspicion” that he is an illegal immigrant, and to detain him if he doesn’t have on him the documentation to prove that he has the right to be in America. If you are a legal immigrant but on the streets without your papers, the onus will be on you to prove your legality.
It even creates a private right of action that allows anyone, from an ordinary citizen to the Minutemen, to file suit against individual law enforcement officers who they believe are refusing to enforce the new act.
The new law makes anyone with brown skin, anyone who looks like he might be from Eastern Europe or the Middle East, anyone with an accent or speaking a foreign language — anyone who looks the least bit like they might be an immigrant — subject to the demand: “Papers please.”
That horrible phrase — “papers please” — is something the authorities once chillingly asked people with knocking knees in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.
It’s as un-American as the German Wehrmacht goose step.
The onus will be on the courts to be raising Arizona back to democracy and making sure the state turns its back on Big Brother.

Stephen Hawking is light years smarter than you or me. This guy’s brain is so scientific he only dines at the periodic table of chemical elements.

Hawking says there is almost certainly life elsewhere in the universe.
With 100 billion galaxies populating the universe, he figures you don’t need Las Vegas to calculate the odds that somewhere out there in deep space some extraterrestrial life forms have evolved past mere amino acids, organic molecules, microbes, talking plants equipped with ray guns, the Chicago Cubs, and slimy salamanders who can be brewed into teabaggers if the atmospheric conditions are just right.
Hawking also says humanity should be scared witless of making contact with aliens, who could bully us, abduct us, brainwash us, mate with us, conquer us and kill us as well as dominate the top selections in the NFL draft.
After all, considering the human condition since the dawn of time on Earth, the human species can hardly be the brightest bulb in the universal string.
As Hawking points out, “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America — which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”
That’s enough to make all of us scream Geronimo.